116 



ON THE BONES, ETC, 



at present, to be a substance communicated to the animal frame, than ge^ 

 nerated by it. 



This opinion, however, is by no means estabhshed ; and there are many 

 circumstances that may lead us to a contrary conclusion. Though almost 

 every kind of food contains some portion of lime, it by no means contains 

 an equal portion ; and yet we find that a healthy young animal, whatever be 

 the sort of food on which it is fed, will still provide lime enough from some 

 quarter or other to satisfy the demand of its growing bones, and to main- 

 tain them in a due degree of solidity and hardness. 



Again, the soil of some countries, as the mountains of Spain, for ex- 

 ample, consists almost entirely of gypsum or some other species of lime- 

 stone ; while in other countries these are substances very rarely to be met 

 with. It is a curious fact, that in that vast part of the globe which has 

 been latest discovered, and to which modern geographers have given the 

 name of Austraha, comprising New Holland and the islands with which 

 its shores are studded, not a single bed or stratum of limestone has 

 hitherto been detected, and the builders are obliged to make use of burnt 

 shells for their mortar, for which I have lately advised them to substitute 

 burnt coral.* Now, it would be natural to suppose that the animals and 

 vegetables of such a country would partake of the deficiency of its soil,, 

 and that the shells and bones which it produces would be less compact in. 

 their texture than those of other countries ; yet this supposition is not ve- 

 rified by fact : nature is still adequate to her own work ; the bones of ani- 

 mals are as indurated and perfect in these regions as in any parts of 

 the old world ; while the shells are not only as perfect, but far more nu- 

 merous ; and the frequent reefs of coral, altogether an animal production, 

 that shoots forth from the shores in bold and massy projections, prove 

 clearly that a coral rock, largely as it consists of lime, forms the basis of 

 almost every island. 



The prodigious quantity of lime, moreover, that is secreted by some 

 animals at stated periods, beyond what they secrete at other times, seems 

 to indicate a power of generating this earth in their own bodies. The 

 stag, elk, and several other species of the deer tribe, cast their antlers an- 

 nually, and renew them in full perfection in about twelve weeks. These 

 antlers are real bones ; and those of the elk are sometimes as heavy as half a 

 hundred pounds weight, and in a fossil state in Ireland have been dug up 

 still heavier, and of the enormous measure of eight feet long, and fourteen 

 feet from tip to tip ; on beholding which, we may well, indeed, exclaim 

 with Waller, — 



in like manner, many species of the crab and lobster tribes annually 

 throw off and renew the whole of their crustaceous covering, and appa- 

 rently without any very great degree of trouble. The animal at this time 

 retires to some lonely, and sheltered place, where in its naked and defence- 

 less state, it may avoid the attack of others of the same tribe which are 

 not in the same situation : a fine instinctively drawn now separates the 

 shell into two parts, which are easily shaken off, when the secernent vessels 



O fertile head ! which every year 

 Could such a crop of wonders bear. 



* It ia understood that some heds of chalk have since been discovered on the farther side 

 of the Blue Mountains ; but none is. still to be traced on the hither side, in any of the settle- 

 a»e»t6 of the colony 



